Containers made according to ISO standards are generally made in lengths of twenty and forty feet. Each container has eight corners, and each corner includes a corner fitting. The corner fittings include an opening on each of their three exposed faces. Various components are attached to the corner fittings to lift, move, load, lockdown, and off-load the ISO containers. These components are generally bulky, complex, expensive, and difficult to use requiring several people, or addition of extensive equipment, to perform a task such as loading, and the ground surface over which containers are being loaded or off-loaded is sometimes damaged. Further, the frequency of use and kinds of uses for ISO containers are continually increasing. For example, ISO containers are now used for anything from typical transportation and storage to mobile office space. Hence, the disadvantages of these components are becoming more acute and have greater cost significant every day.
Trailer loading and off loading components are of special significance. Containers are frequently loaded onto trailers when oriented at an angle to the trailer. The various trailer accessories currently available lack the ability to align ISO containers with the trailer, so that loading and off loading are overly time consuming and require two or more people to complete the task. Conventionally, trailers are provided with a single winch fixed at a central location near the front of the trailer. The single winch lacks the ability to align the container during loading and is unable to aide in performing other functions such as off loading. Substantial advancements have been made in tilting trailers to load/unload containers by shifting the undercarriage of the trailer as taught by U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,211,413 and 5,013,056 which are hereby fully incorporated herein by reference. However, these references generally do not address the problem of a container oriented at an angle to the trailer, and the undercarriage of a trailer can only be shifted so far.
Another problem is presented when loading two twenty foot containers on the same trailer. When the front twenty foot container has been loaded onto a trailer, the centrally located winch is not positioned to efficiently pull the rear twenty foot container onto the trailer behind the front container.